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Category: Prayer

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Oct82010

Information Overload

Kester Brewin has posted an interesting blog about ‘The Problem with Digital Culture [1]: Too Much, Too Fast’.  This is an issue I have been pondering over the last few weeks.  The internet has revolutionised the way in which we process information as it comes flying at us in faster ways with increasing clickability.  As I type this blog I have already included a link to another that links to some more in a never-ending cascade of information.

Imagine a conveyor-belt of various items coming towards you, some important, some not so. It’s going at a pace which allows you to take each object, think about it and then classify it, categorise it in your own taxonomy, and store it. It’s not the fastest process, but things do get put away tidily.

Now speed up the belt. Why? Because it means you get more stuff. LOTS more stuff. So much stuff is now coming at you that you just don’t have the time to think about it or categorise it. You just throw it over your shoulder into your store and hope it comes in useful one day when you’ve got more time and aren’t so anxious about missing something really important which might be coming down the line.

The increased availability of information and the free flow of information isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The internet connects ideas together and provides the joined up thinking.  The TED talk I blogged earlier in the week shows the amazing possibilities of the free flow of information.  I know that I wouldn’t be as good a guitarist, photographer, theologian…. cook…. without these principles.

Like many train journeys, life seems to pass at increasing speed whilst we sit in the carriage trying to catch a glimpse of something we have passed.  It seems that we often give ourselves whiplash as we spin to look for the moments we have missed.  This also has an impact upon our creativity.  Jonny Baker blogged this video this morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb0ssmoXG1I

The means to networking our creativity are pushing us to greater achievements than ever before as we are inspired by those people who live the other side of the world.  However, those networks create information onslaught which may actually be blocking our creativity by preventing our contemplation? 

On Sunday Dr Ruth led a meditation based on a CBT technique she uses at work.  We took five minutes to contemplate a raisin using all of our different senses.  I had no idea that raisins made noise!  I wonder what else I would notice if I took time out to contemplate it. 

And so I head out for lunch with Dr Ruth, perhaps a coffee and then a birthday bash this evening with friends.

Jan222009

A Smashing Idea | Worship Idea for Confession

If you are looking for a different way in which to pray for repentance, how about doing it in a dramatic and violent manner?

For this you will need to get some cheap plates and permanent markers.  Ikea or a charity shop will be a good place to get very cheap plates from.  Using the permanent markers, each person is invited to write their sins on a plate.  For the absolution, everyone then comes to smash their plate against some rocks.

Think about how to make it safe – we don’t want to have a Greek Tragedy.  Don’t have everyone coming up all at once.  Put sheets down so that all of the broken crockery can be easily gathered at the end and then throw it away.

Apr222008

Radical Prayer

I was handed an email by a colleague with a prayer given by the Rev. Joe Wright to a Kansas legislative session.  My first reaction was that must be an urban legend but having looked it up, it is apparently true. 

Heavenly Father,

We come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.

We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good’
But that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbour’s Possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and Pornography and called it freedom of speech and expression.

We have ridiculed the time Honoured values of our Forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, And know our hearts today;

Cleanse us from every sin And set us free…Amen!’

How many times have we heard asinine intercessions that have no impact upon our past, present or future?  I think if you are going to use this as a worship idea however, it needs to be well thought out.  It is an abuse of prayer to use it as a personal vehicle in which you preach at those who you are intercessing on behalf of.  However, it can be a really powerful vehicle to raise the major issues of the times we are living and our own part within them to God.